A lot of us get taught early in our lives that we should be grateful to receive someone’s least amount of effort. “Deep down, I know they love me” only goes so far when care seldom turns into presence, time, or effort. “At least I didn’t cheat” is inadequate when loyalty is the baseline for a relationship, not an achievement. And yes, at least they remembered your birthday, but that is thin comfort when the other 364 days go unseen. The odd thing about these stories is how easily they can be true while still leaving a quiet gap behind them that nothing seems to fill except questions, assumptions, and excuses.
I’ve been sitting with what it might mean to grieve someone who’s still very much alive—to be loved deeply by a person and still go without. And how you can witness someone be fluent in presence, depth, and vulnerability with others, only to find that fluency feels like pretense when it’s finally your turn. Performed closeness doesn’t always come from a lie; sometimes it comes from true love and care that only reaches as far as someone’s comfort allows. For years I held both of those truths at once: I loved and I still wanted, and then perceived myself as ungracious because wanting more felt like a betrayal of what I already had.
I see that I’m in-between self-concepts right now, and there’s a particular frustration that occurs where the next identity hasn’t become fully embodied, and the old one keeps tugging at my sleeve. With the psychological, cathartic Scorpio retrogrades this month, I catch myself going back through old memories and situations like photo albums. I notice the tension I’ve often carried by nodding and saying “that’s fair” or “it’s fine” in moments where I didn’t really feel that way, because vocalizing what I actually desired, expected, or perceived would’ve meant admitting how long I’d been feeling disappointed or hurt.
For most of my life, I haven’t let myself ask more from people who could’ve always given it, but out of convenience, comfort, or circumstance, didn’t. I understood that someone can love me and still not show up for me when and how I really need them to. It just hurts to accept that someone can be moving the way they do because they’re attempting to heal the same wounds they’re now creating in you.
Understanding why absence, neglect, or misunderstandings occur is never the same as being okay with them. I think I’ve just been confusing those two for years—translating every gap into a reason, and every reason into more patience, until my patience had quietly become a passive method of asking for and accepting less. That's the kind of grief I'm talking about. Not losing someone, but losing the version of closeness I kept creating and defending—the kind that looked solid from afar and showed its cracks up close, time and time again. A love that's known and felt to be real, but hasn’t reached as far as I've needed it to. I can hold compassion for all of it and still call the gap a gap.
What I’ve been reflecting on this month is how much of this is mirrored in my own actions, exposing a double standard I didn't realize I was holding. I know I desire my own personal, tight-knit soul family to lean on and live life with, but I’m also recognizing that my capacity to be a present community member myself has been pretty low lately. For so long, I used to jump at every opportunity to support and celebrate the people I cared about without the proper discernment, boundaries, or rest. Now I’m playing catch-up with my own leaky, drained battery, trying to make do until I can consistently hold a charge.
This homecoming to self has required far more solitude and saying “no” than I initially expected. From the outside looking in, I know that can look a lot like distance, regardless of where the intention comes from. But showing up consistently often means spending money I need to save, time I must reserve for other responsibilities, and energy and focus that wane quite easily. This isn’t about the conditional nature of relationships, but a reminder that it’s okay for me to take extra pressure off of myself instead of trying to overcompensate for how long it is taking me to find my own stability.
The truth is, my yearning for closeness has often made me impatient with my own healing journey. I’ve wanted to skip the messy middle and get straight back to being available and ready. But you cannot recklessly rush to the aid and celebration of others when it too quickly becomes a distraction from your own growth or healing. I’m permitting myself to step back from the demands of showing up—to miss the birthday celebrations, the family gatherings, the trips, and the spending so I can finally secure my own oxygen mask. I’m tired of staying in survival mode, because I’m too scared to truly allow people to experience me putting myself first.
By choosing this deliberate absence, I realize I’ve been judging others the same way I’ve been judging myself. Both come from the same questions surrounding absence and presence: What is enough? What is fair? And both have been easier to answer with quick shame than with nuanced honesty. A season, or maybe even a lifetime, of showing up less isn’t necessarily evidence of less care or love. It might be a symptom of burnout, or simply a shift in priorities. This season is teaching me to pay attention to whether my own are truly aligned, or merely driven by a sense of obligation.
I’m not sure I’ve landed on an answer in every area or connection, but I’m learning that wanting more from people who are capable of giving it isn’t the same as being ungrateful. It’s recognition, acknowledgement. Giving yourself the room and time you need to re-stabilize isn’t abandonment, and it doesn’t make you unworthy of still receiving the support and love you deserve. Maybe both sides of this need the same grace: the people who give what they can and the people who withhold when they may need to. Maybe the closeness in connection we could all be looking for starts with finding people who are capable of being open and honest about their capacity to give.
I like the put on my oxygen mask analogy…well said!